7 Lies We Need To Stop Telling About Young African-American Men

PolicyMic

William Floyd School District

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Last week Long Island teenager Kwasi Enin captured national headlines after becoming part of an impressive club: high school seniors who have been accepted into all eight Ivy League schools. However, while many celebrated Enin's achievement, a bitter minority griped that the teenager had somehow gamed the system. The racial subtext was obvious: Enin couldn't have actually have gotten into all those schools by himself. Why? Well, because he's black.

This type of harmful and wholly inaccurate narrative has been constructed around African-American male student achievement for years. Enin is just the latest high-profile example of how it hurts all young men, high school high achievers or not, by implying that the majority of African-American boys are hopelessly behind and may never be able to narrow the achievement gap.